African Venus

This sculpture, called “The African Venus” by a French critic, was designed by Charles Cordier as a companion to a male portrait bust of a fictional “Saïd Abdullah of the Mayac Tribe, Kingdom of Darfour.” Both characters were modeled from life in Cordier’s studio and were early examples of his determination “to discover the different human types which come together to form a single people.” Cordier’s sculptures, which often incorporated colored stone and precious metal finishes, stood in striking contrast to the white marble figures that embodied Victorian and Second Empire decorum. The effectiveness of such techniques may be seen in this reduced-scale bronze cast, in which warm skin tones are evoked by Cordier’s use of a fine silver patina. The subject of an African Venus would have appealed to a predominantly male audience attracted by the myths of availability associated with women of foreign cultures. The model’s heavy-lidded eyes, parted lips, and lightweight drapery reinforce such stereotypes, but the realism and carriage of the figure’s head create a strong impression of individuality and dignity.

Cordier often embellished his sculptures with polychrome marble and with precious metal patinas. Although associated with a style that reinforced romantic stereotypes of exotic cultures, Cordier used this approach to convey authenticity in his heads of African men and women. Silver patination dignifies this reduced-scale African Venus, modeled after a French woman from Guadeloupe who had been enslaved as a child. A larger version, paired with a bust of Saïd Abdallah of the Darfour Tribe at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace, London, was purchased for the collection of Queen Victoria. Cordier was subsequently appointed ethnographic sculptor for the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where he set out to demonstrate that all races possessed their own unique beauty, rivaling that of classical antiquity.

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. “Selected Works”. Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2008.